


The Tale of Sen

by Zell_Hatoule



Series: The Convergence of the Collective Unconscious [1]
Category: Persona 3, Persona Series
Genre: Akihiko deserved better than P4Arena, Gen, I hope, Illegal Brawling, Rewritten from an old RP, Street fighting, Various worldbuilding for eventual Persona 5 Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-20 19:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30010056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zell_Hatoule/pseuds/Zell_Hatoule
Summary: Akihiko has been hiding a much darker truth from his friends than just the death of his sister. The underground king of the rings,Sen Amarais one and the same with the Boxing Champion of Iwatodai. A chance encounter results in his greatest secret being found.
Relationships: Kirijo Mitsuru & Sanada Akihiko
Series: The Convergence of the Collective Unconscious [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2207598
Kudos: 8





	The Tale of Sen

The crowd roars his name, chanting and roaring their appreciation as he ducks and weaves between blows, bandage-wrapped fists speckled with blood from broken noses and split lips. Akihiko himself is dirty and bruised, a grin on his lips that is as wild as the stage name he carries.

But it felt hollow and empty now, thanks to Takeba. The thrill of the fight, the cheers of those around him. Shallow and empty and so fucking  _ awful _ that he could help but hit harder, hit faster, break their noses and their arms and their  _ lives - _

Why did he have to get involved? He could have been  _ happy,  _ staying in the rings ignorant of the dangers but no - Takeba had to make him  _ feel _ it, make him remember all that he risked for -

A familiar flash of red crosses his vision, and Akihiko ducks below a wild swing, eyes closing for a brief moment.

Of course.  _ Of fucking course _ she was here. Of all the people, of all of his friends that could have stumbled across him, it had to be  _ her. _

_ Dammit! _ Akihiko hisses under his breath. Sen too, grumbles agreement with his thoughts.

Of course, of course she’d follow him here, no matter how out of place she looked.

It wasn’t the clothes, though those made her stand out. It wasn’t her red hair either. It was her entire  _ demeanor. _ She wasn’t like Nana, like the other higher-class ladies who came to watch. She  _ oozed _ disdain, and he knew that she would be hard-pressed to keep quiet.

A perfectly manicured finger crooks at him, her lips shaping around a single word.

_ Now. _

Done toying with his opponent, Akihiko slams his fist into their stomach, putting them down for the count. His foot slams next to their head, and they freeze, alarmed, even as he bites his lower lip, irritated beyond reason.

“Yield,”  _ Sen  _ growls irritably, already done with this whole mess. The referee doesn’t argue, calling the fight even as he snatches the bills out of the man’s hands, shoving them into the pocket of his pants. The crowds part for him, for  _ Sen, _ the Infatiguable.

Ha. What a **_joke._**

Drawing level, he deliberately steps a bit too close for comfort, sharp gray eyes flicking over her as she holds herself tensely, expression as cold as her element. Leaning in, he uses the pretense of tucking her perfectly coiffed hair behind an ear to speak.

“You may not like my explanation, but I have my right to say my piece before you render your judgement,” he says flatly, dark silver eyes boring into her own with a challenging gleam in them. Whispers explode like summer fireworks over wet asphalt at their tensely held alignment, their gazes locked in challenge.

Her gaze slides away at long last, a frustrated sigh curling her lips as she yields - always yields - to his stubbornness, just as he yields to her commands.

“Where to?” He asks her, raising a brow in challenge when a few of the more unwise look to inch closer. They inch back.

“Anywhere but here,” she says in return, tone cold and furious. She’s as clipped and rude as she gets when she’s angry. He knows this angers her - she hates that they respect him, that they look at him like a  _ god. _ Her heels click sharp and loud in the hush, the crowds parting at his cold glare. Those who eyed her like she was a fine treat shrunk from his gaze, from his anger and savagery because they knew he would  _ kill _ any who touched her.

The rumors that pass his ears are… lascivious, to say the least. They speculate upon their connection, the Queen of Iwatodai and the Infatigable King of the Rings. They call him her  _ slave, _ her whipping boy and lewdly speak of what they do behind closed doors.

Had it been anyone else, had he been alone, he would have  _ laughed, _ and made them regret it immediately after. Instead, his eyes sweep the crowd.

He knows what he looks like. His dyed-dark hair clung to pale skin, framed his face in sharp shocks that were like negative space against traditionally snowy skin. Combined with his silver eyes, tall and intimidatingly built figure with bloodied wraps, he knew more than one’s courage would fail against  _ Sen. _

And so they do, scuttling back like cowards as he escorts her free.

* * *

Meanwhile, Mitsuru is seething.

How - how could he? He was her friend, and she’d thought him better than this. To stoop so low, to fight and gain such dirty money for - for what? Perhaps it was her naive upbringing at work, but the money was as dirty as it came. Turning, she watches as he undoes the wrappings around his fists, slips on an oversized hoodie, and stops by a fountain to rinse the dye out of his hair with a spark of lightning and water.

“You look awful,” she says bluntly.

“I’ve felt worse,” he counters blithely. “It’s not like I get bruises for the same thing twice in there,” he says, the tone dryly amused.

Her brow twitches. Bragging. He knew she didn’t appreciate this -  _ this. _ Huffing a breath out from her nose, she flips her hair behind her shoulders, hands planting on her hips.

Before she can tap her foot, he opens his mouth. “We can stop by a food stall, and once I’ve gotten us something to eat, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” She rears back at his seeming acquiescence, narrows chestnut eyes in a glare.

Silver blink back at her, nothing but guileless innocence in them. With a sharp breath out, she sighs.

“Fine.” The explanation he promised better be  _ exceptionally _ compelling. Her scorn has been built by those comments, like those who spoke as though he was little more than a  _ piece of meat. _

She huffs again. She had no issues with him doing as he pleased - only the fact that  _ this _ was illegal.

The takoyaki stand is close to closing at this hour of the night, but a handful of sweet, honey-dripping words was enough for Akihiko to have the woman eating out of the palm of his hand, the girl chirpily making them enough takoyaki for two. He carries on an idle, banal conversation with her even as he peels a few of his bills free to pay the girl with a generous tip. He is soft and generous, and had she not watched him incapacitate a man and threaten him with murder in his eyes, she would have never known.

Akihiko offers her a stick, and she accepts, watching him fish out one for himself. Taking a bite, he chews, his expression thoughtful.

“This activity… I didn’t think I’d be doing it for long,” Akihiko muses mildly aloud, and she pauses mid-chew to better hear him. How tasteful, she thinks.  _ Activity indeed. _

“It’s an addicting place, for a boy who wanted to fight, who didn’t care who he hurt so long as it would keep what was in his head quiet.” Another chew, and he swallows. “It was easy, at first. I was a strange kid, a  _ frightening _ child. Pretty as a picture but no potential for anything but trouble. I learned it was  _ wrong  _ later, in school. Saw the news about fighting rings, how it fucked people up and ruined their lives.”

Another deliberate bite. “Didn’t quite give a fuck.” He shrugs.

“It didn’t help that my adoptive mother liked the money I raked in, when she found out where I was going. I thought she was great, when she found out and instead of yelling at me, she took me aside and showed me how to read them instead. When I got older, I found out she put insurance on me - you know, in case I died in the ring.”

Mitsuru sucks in a sharp breath. Her memories of her mother were fuzzy at  _ best _ \- the idea that any one person would do that to their own child, adoptive or not, was completely counter to what she remembered of her mother.

“She told me it was okay. I believed her - aggression and surliness and annoyance I was aside - I was naive. I  _ wanted _ to hurt people, I still do. I don’t like nice, clean, sanitized fights. They don’t do anything for me, and there’s nowhere - nobody - safe to let them out on.” His smile is sharp as a knife, feral aggression that hides itself under his veneer of respectability once more.

It’s almost effortless, the switch between predator and - if not quite  _ prey _ \- then harmless. Sweet and genteel and sweet-natured honey hiding arsenic beneath pretty distractions.

You could barely tell what he had been doing not more than half an hour earlier. And it  _ bothered _ her. She had been aware, peripherally, for his capacity for violence, for his combative ruthlessness and aggression. At least three points in his conversation she had been forced to stay her tongue, allow him to say his piece.

It’s distant, her acknowledgement that she was enjoying the late-evening snack, but it was hardly a priority, nothing more than something to do with her hands.

“Does Tartarus not satisfy that need? For fights that aren’t ‘nice’ or ‘clean’.” Her tone is obviously bitter, the disdain within thick as tar. It makes her sound stiffer, colder than she usually is with him. “An illegal backstreet brawl is hardly what I would call  _ safe, _ Akihiko. I highly doubt anyone would rush to help you there if you were ever seriously hurt - and  _ don’t _ say that you won’t.” Her fingers are trembling. “You’re not.” Tired of the charade, she turns to face him head on.

“What you’re doing is  _ wrong _ and you  _ know it. _ ” Her gaze narrows on him.

Instead of deflecting, turning it away, he merely huffs a little laugh.

“Of course I do,” Akihiko says, tone blunt, and it makes her rear back in shocked surprise, blinking at him as though he’d turned on a flashlight and shone it into her eyes. “But Tartarus doesn’t fill the need anymore. I’ve been stagnating - you can’t tell me you’ve missed how Makoto hasn’t swapped me off team lineup for months, and it’s not because I’m pretty,” he jokes dryly.

“I’ve been able to take anything that comes our way with pretty much no effort, and it’s not like we can do more without taking off the key from the Reaper. You know it, I know it - hell, even Shinji knows it, for all he sticks his fingers in his ears and pretends he can’t see what’s in front of him.”

She’s not sure what stuns her most - the admission or the frankness of his reply.

“I’ve been aware this is wrong, that this is the wrong way to deal with my problems for a while. But how the hell do you escape it? They might not know who I am when I take off the mask, put Sen away like a baseball cap, but they respected me - or Sen. I command a lot of power there, in the back alleys of Iwatodai.”

Softer, he adds a slightly pained, “I’ve never been invincible. Impossible to wear out, maybe. Willing to get up after one hit too many, definitely. But I  _ can’t _ leave. God, Mitsuru, I’ve tried. Ever since Takeba accused me of wanting nothing but a good fight. It was true, and I  _ hated _ more than anything that she was right about that shit. Dammit, Mitsuru.” He runs his hand through his hair, looks young and tired and alone, and inadvertently, she feels guilty for putting that look on the self-assured senior’s face.

“Who do I go to? You? Shinji? Kurowasa?” His laughter rings hollow. “You… you don’t have blackmail that could put you in prison for years, you don’t have someone holding it over your head and  _ making _ you do what they ask for their pleasure.” A flicker of regret fills his eyes.

“I want you to never,  _ ever _ experience that.”

His words had stunned her, had held her fast in their sobriety, had scared her for their intensity. But the last words, she snaps out of it.

“Yes!” She cries, only a quarter of her awareness allowing her to recognize that he is pushing another stick of the treat into her hand - as he always does, worried about her eating habits. “Of  _ course _ you come see me, or - or  _ somebody! _ If you’re in trouble, you look for  _ help, _ ” she half snaps, half cries. “There has to be  _ something _ somebody can do, to protect you,” she says, hands shaking. She hates how vulnerable it makes her feel, so she crosses her arms, pretends it’s just the night air that is making her shake. The takoyaki stick dangles from her fingers, all but forgotten.

“I swear, the both of you,” she fumes at Akihiko, and he has the grace to look mildly sheepish. “Both as bad as the other. Why are you two so pig-headed that you won’t let anyone help?!”

Shinjiro had fled rather than ask for help with his troubles - and now, Akihiko was barrelling down that same path, that same problem, hiding a massive secret that she couldn’t pinpoint the origin of. Her unburdened hand taps staccato on her bicep, takes a deep breath to simply breathe and collect herself.

“Please… be honest with me. Is this something you truly feel forced to do? Or is it just the thrill now, that keeps you there?”

Quicksilver eyes observe her, the tense lines of her body, the way her fingers tap restlessly upon an arm, unusual agitation from her, he would know, after four years of knowing one another in the most stressful of ways.

His smile is bittersweet and sad, and she  _ hates _ it.

“Mitsuru, you have to know what kind of trouble this will bring you. To your family, your company, your  _ reputation. _ ‘Kirijo heiress found in illegal fighting ring’,” he quotes, as though he could see the headlines. “This is far more than just me not asking you for help. Your reputation - hell  _ mine _ \- it can’t afford that kind of hit.” He looks away, fist clenched around the paper bag and something like  _ rage _ in the depths of his glittering eyes. “What if this gets back to you?” He bites his lower lip, pain radiating off of him as though a blow had been dealt.

He’s right, Mitsuru realizes, even as it galls her. She couldn’t be involved in this, not without bringing her and the entire company down, which meant her influence only ever extended so far. It’s an awful truth, a  _ disgusting _ truth, and she knows all too well how hard such a dark secret will be to keep.

“If -  _ when _ \- this gets out, Mitsuru, it’s  _ over _ for me. Tokyo, any university ever. I’ll have nothing left but the rings.” A bitter, broken laugh leaves him, and it sounds so out of place she nearly drops the stick in her hand. “That’s what Nana wants. I’ll never escape her thumb unless it’s broken and bleeding out.” He unclenches his fist, eyes opening.

“I won’t lie - I still enjoy it, I used to enjoy it way more than I do now. But fuck it - Takeba was right, as much as I hate her for it, for complicating my world with that awful fucking truth in Yakushima - that I didn’t give a damn if it didn’t give me a good fight. I hate her for it, because the fact that it was true, that she made me confront that truth  _ bothered _ me. I could always excuse it, when I was younger. It was for Nana, for her retirement, for funds so our Leader could buy supplies, to protect our underclassmen.”

She flinches when his laughter bites out, bitter and so  _ angry _ with himself she wonders how she missed it. This had never been his choice, he’d been coerced into it - willingly, he would admit - but coerced all the same to support a ‘mother figure’.

Some mother, she thinks, disgusted.

“I love fighting, Mitsuru. I love the thrill of being in the ring - but like  _ hell _ I want to trade my freedom for it. Dammit.” His fists shake. “I like to fight. But I’m tired, tired of risking my future for temporary gratification. I. Want.  _ Out. _ ”

He is heaving. Breath rising and falling rapidly as he speaks, angry and tired and so very annoyed with himself, with the situation, with  _ all _ of it.

For the briefest of moments, her inner optimist considers reassuring him that nobody will find out, before she squashes that with her thumb, takes a bite of takoyaki to keep it from leaving her lips.

_ She’d _ found him, with minimal research involved. Which meant it was only a matter of time before the authorities did as well, their grip growing ever-tighter on this particular segment of illegality.

He needed to escape now, before the net closed around his throat and strangled his chances of freedom.

She thinks back to their time as friends. Akihiko was a  _ good _ man; certainly a little rough around the edges, far from  _ refined _ \- but he was not a bad person. No matter where he’d come from, or what he’d done - and she wasn’t so stupid as to think he’d told her even a  _ quarter _ of what he had gotten up to - he wasn’t a terrible person. She called him a friend, a valuable companion.

He put up with  _ her, _ and she knew she could be fussy, high-maintenance, and difficult to get along with. Whatever reasons he had, he called her his friend, and she knew, not just suspected, he  _ meant _ it.

A final bite of her food, and she looks at him, tosses the stick in the trash.

“We’ll find a way. If you want out, you’ll  _ get _ out.” Silence stretches as they stare at one another. “Obviously, it won’t be that easy, but something must be capable of being done, and I won’t rest until I’ve found one.”

Her words might as well have been a hammerblow to Akihiko.

All at once, he gives a soft, shaken smile, watery-eyed and lips trembling upwards. He takes a hand - a hand that Mitsuru now knows is stained with blood, but she holds still - to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, steps closer in a way he wouldn’t for anyone else.

“You’re a  _ gift, _ Mitsuru,” he whispers, and even as her cheeks heat from his overly affectionate form of address, she lets him untense. His lips press soft against her temple. “If you get me out of this, I’m  _ yours, _ ” he murmurs. The touch makes her jolt - embarrassment and not-quite affection. It catches her off guard - for a hand to hand specialist, he was usually not very tactile. Tonight was an exception, a crack in his marble facade of the  _ perfect _ Iwatodai Senior.

Even so, his heartfelt promise tugs a smile to his lips, even as she flushes a little. If being determined to help him made her a  _ gift, _ then so be it.

“I’ll do everything I can,” she promises, catches his fingers with her own, watches the crooked little smirk on his lips as he registers her soft blush. “But you know we have one more person to tell, at least.”

Shinjiro.

She doubted the Hierophant would be vindicated -  _ she _ had been angry, before he’d come clean, and she had nowhere near the temper of which Shinjiro was famous for.

A clouded expression covers his fair features, and she watches as he bites his lip hard enough to bleed, lost in thought and no doubt terrified in some small way of what would happen. Lifting her hand, she skims her fingers over his cheek - silent chastisement, and he frees his lower lip at her unspoken command.

“I’m right here for you,” she promises, and something in his gaze cracks - vulnerable and quiet. His eyes - which had been defensive, were now tired and oddly relieved. Hiding such a secret was no doubt a strain upon him. He is trembling, a little, as he looks away, as he worries his bottom lip once more, and she tugs it free with a thumb.

“Tell me,” she says, soft. “I’m not mad at you.”

“... I was ten,” he murmurs. “Ten years old, when Nana first enrolled me into the ring as her prize fighter.”

Her hand freezes - a minute thing, noticeable only by the tremor of her fingers as they suddenly stop in place. It takes all of her willpower to not simply freeze the world around them.

_ Ten years old. _ He’d been dealing with this  _ before she’d ever met him. _

His words had been a hint, that this had been going on longer than he was happy with, when he spoke of his childhood and she’d prepared herself.

High school, surely, she’d thought. Middle school, at the youngest.

Not elementary-age, not a true  _ child _ like Ken. She has to school her expression into her famous mask, even as her guilt - and her instinctive desire to take blame as she has always done - rears its head.

Rationality wins - she had been but a child herself, and if even Shinjiro had not known the truth, how could she?

“I’m scared, Mitsuru,” he says quietly, snaps her out of her sudden pity party, and her heart burns with anger at his next words. “What if Nana wins?”

He’s trembling, and  _ that _ is the last straw.

“ _ No. _ ” Not just her - Penthesilea - bristling with rage for one that dared hurt those she cared for. “That will  _ never _ happen,” she says furiously. However, she is careful to be gentle when she cups his face and tilts it down, so that he is forced to look at her. “That, tonight, was your  _ last _ street-fight. If that woman wants you back, she will have to come and get you herself - and then, she will answer to  _ me. _ ”

His shaking eases, his eyes sliding closed as he calms, soothed by her words, and she smiles softly, pulls him close. The dorm was within sight, and so she stretches up, presses their foreheads together.

“We’ll be alright,” she promises.

He’d told her the truth. And while she was under no illusions that what came next would be easy, she would not back down from a fight.

This fight was too important to lose.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an adaption of an old RP I did on tumblr that I still revisit quite frequently. Some - who am I kidding - all of this is going to become relevant to a future Persona 5 fic if I can make myself write it.


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